1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a chip separation and alignment apparatus, and more particularly to a chip separation and alignment apparatus which is adapted to separate a number of chips charged in a chip storage chamber utilizing air intermittently ejected and concurrently align them or arrange them in a row in a chip alignment hole to successively feed the aligned chips one by one from a head of the row.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Recently, techniques of mounting a wide variety of and a large number of chips such as small-sized rectangular and cylindrical electronic circuit elements on printed circuit boards have been extensively improved. For the mounting, various automatic chip mounting apparatus are used each of which is adapted to carry circuit elements onto a printed circuit board and mount the former on the latter. As a part of such an automatic chip mounting apparatus or a pre-apparatus of the mounting apparatus a chip separation and alignment apparatus is used which is adapted to arrange a number of chips in a row and successively feed them one by one.
A chip separation and alignment apparatus which has been conventionally used for such a purpose is typically classified into a tape cassette-type and a hopper-type as illustratively shown in FIGS. 7 and 8, respectively.
A chip separation and alignment apparatus of the tape cassette-type, as shown in FIG. 7, is constructed to set a reel 104 having a chip tape 103 wound thereabout in a cassette. The chip tape 103 comprises a paper tape body 101 having a plurality of holes formed therethrough at equal intervals and each charged therein with a chip t and a cover tape element 102 arranged to cover an upper surface of the tape body 101. Then, the cassette is mechanically operated to cause the chip tape 103 set in the cassette to be intermittently dispensed by a distance corresponding to a length of one chip along guides of a guide rail 105, and concurrently the cover tape element 102 is peeled from the tape body 101, so that the chips t exposed one by one at a distal end of the guide rail 105 may be successively held on a suction head or the like controlled by a computer and then moved onto a printed circuit board for mounting. The tape cassette is constructed into a flat shape so as to have a thickness slightly larger than that of the reel 104. Several tens or hundreds of such tape cassettes are removably and exchangably arranged.
Unfortunately, the chip separation and alignment apparatus of the tape cassette-type requires a large space for arranging a number of the tape cassettes therein. Another disadvantage encountered with the apparatus is that the chip tape is wasteful because of being disposable. The apparatus exhibits a further problem that an additional step of carrying the chips on the paper tape body is required, and a structure for feeding and extracting the chips one by one must be employed.
A chip separation and alignment apparatus of the hopper-type, as shown in FIG. 8, includes a plurality of hoppers 107 of a cylindrical or rectangular shape arranged on a base 106. The hoppers 107 each have a separation pipe 108 inserted thereinto through a center of a lower surface thereof. In the so-constructed apparatus, either the hopper 107 (base 106) or the separation pipe 108 is vertically moved to vertically move a distal end of the separation pipe 108 in relation to chips t to successively introduce the chips t in the separation pipe 108 to vertically arrange them in a row in the pipe 108. The so-aligned chips t are separated from each other one by one by means of a suitable separation structure to be subsequently supplied to a subsequent apparatus such as a multi-type automatic chip mounting apparatus.
The chip separation and alignment apparatus of the hopper-type has a disadvantage of requiring a large space for installing the hoppers. Another disadvantage encountered with the apparatus is that the number and location of hoppers to be installed are restricted because the hoppers or separation pipes must be vertically moved at the same time. A further problem of the apparatus is to render separate control of the hoppers substantially impossible because a plurality of the hoppers or separation pipes are simultaneously actuated.